


Naked and Afraid

by makeit_takeit



Category: Hockey RPF, Naked and Afraid (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Meet-Cute, Reality TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 12:38:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15340026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeit_takeit/pseuds/makeit_takeit
Summary: “I’m Tyler,” the voiceover says, laid on top of a still photo of a shirtless guy with a sick sleeve and a giant grin hanging by one hand from an outcropping of rock, flexing the not-inconsiderable biceps of his free arm as he mugs for the camera. The drop to the water below him has to be 10 meters, maybe more.“I’m 26, from Brampton, Ontario, but I’ve lived all over the world.”Jamie hasn’t really been paying that much attention - he’s eating dinner and looking at his phone, the TV more background noise than anything - but he puts his phone aside when he hears Ontario. As far as he knows, only one other Canadian has ever been a contestant on the show.





	Naked and Afraid

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else obsessed with Naked and Afraid? What, that's just me? 
> 
> Okay then, anyone up for Jamie and Tyler naked on a beach? Right, that's what I thought.
> 
> As usual, this is un-beta'd so if you see blatant errors, think it needs additional tags, etc., feel free let me know.
> 
> This is basically silly and pointless, so, enjoy!

“I’m Tyler,” the voiceover says, laid on top of a still photo of a shirtless guy with a sick sleeve and a giant grin hanging by one hand from an outcropping of rock, flexing the not-inconsiderable biceps of his free arm as he mugs for the camera. The drop to the water below him has to be 10 meters, maybe more.

“I’m 26, from Brampton, Ontario, but I’ve lived all over the world.”

Jamie hasn’t really been paying that much attention - he’s eating dinner and looking at his phone, the TV more background noise than anything - but he puts his phone aside when he hears _Ontario_. As far as he knows, only one other Canadian has ever been a contestant on the show.

The screen shows more pictures of Tyler as he talks – freefalling through the sky with hair flying and both thumbs up before opening his chute, climbing a frozen wall of ice with an axe in one hand and his other throwing up a peace sign, crouching low on a surf board with a giant wave cresting under him, in some nondescript backcountry snow-scape, hunting rifle strapped across his back and a couple of snowshoe hare carcasses strung over one shoulder. In all of them, he’s sporting that same giant grin.

“I’ve just always loved being outside, I guess,” the voiceover laughs, almost a giggle. “I wasn’t that great of a student and I could never really focus enough to like, get into organized sports or whatever. I just always wanted to get out and _do_ stuff. I don’t like to, like, overthink, or plan everything out, I just go with my gut. I want to see everything, try everything, you know? You only live once, right? I wanna make the most of it, every second.”

They cut to a shaky, handheld video, obviously shot by Tyler, showing a shaggy brown dog chasing a stick on a tropical beach.

“I’ve been in Central America, like, maybe six months now?” The dog runs up to the camera and drops the stick, and a tattooed arm comes into view to pick it up and whip it back out into the water. The dog bounds away again in pursuit.

“I came basically with the clothes on my back and a few bucks left from a ski instructor gig I had last winter in Banff,” Tyler goes on. “I mostly travel by myself; kind of a lone wolf, I guess. Until I met Pepito there on the street in Limon, when I first rolled into town. He just kind of followed me around so we’ve been hanging together. We camp on the beach.”

The camera turns to a little makeshift tent farther up from the water, using the low hanging branch of a tree to support a tarp that forms a little dwelling. In front of the shelter is a blackened spot in the sand surrounded by a few rocks.

“We do a lot of spear fishing,” Tyler narrates as he walks toward the campsite, zooms in on a few rough-hewn spears, obviously hand made, “and eat a lot of fruit and coconut.” The video shows a small pile of some unidentified fruit, and some hollowed out coconut shells nestled in among the sanded ashes of the firepit. There’s a machete and a bow-drill propped against a rock near the fire, a couple of tin utensils, a cup and a plate.

“There’s a lot of birds and small game around that I could definitely use to supplement our diet, I’m pretty good with snares and stuff, but hunting is actually illegal in Costa Rica. I always want to respect the laws and customs of anywhere I travel, so we just make do, ya know?”

The view swings around to the trunk of a nearby tree with a knife hilt sticking out of it, the wood all around it splintered by repeated knife strikes. Tyler pries the knife out and backs away to a distance of 5 meters or so, then launches the knife, sinking it into essentially the same spot in the tree with a satisfying thwack.

“I go into the village for water, rum, guaro,” the camera pans into the shelter, shows the bottles lined up there as proof, “and for rice and beans sometimes; that’s about it. I’m pretty self-sufficient and anyway, we don’t need much, do we Pepito? Do we, big guy? No, no we don’t.”

The dog comes back into view along with Tyler’s hand, scrubbing at the wet fur between Pepito’s ears.

“I guess I just like to do my own thing.”

“As an avid outdoorsman with exposure to many different landscapes and climates,” the official narrator’s voice announces over a shirtless still frame of Tyler on the beach, grinning with Pepito at his feet, “Tyler’s experience makes him adaptable and flexible in any environment. He’s developed a broad range of skills, however, he is untested in the kind of extreme survival situation he’ll face. Tyler’s lack of focus on preparedness and preference for working alone may prove to be an obstacle to his success in a team setting. Because of this, Tyler has been given a Primitive Survival Rating, or PSR, of 6.6.”

It cuts to Tyler in the back of a jeep, bouncing through a sandy, arid backdrop.

“I’m pumped, bro,” he says to the camera, that grin seeming wider all the time. “I’m so stoked for this, I can’t wait to get it going. I know it’s gonna be tough, but I’m always up for a challenge. Hopefully I’ve got what it takes, ya know? I’m just ready to jump in and see what happens!”

“It’s cool,” he says, obviously in response to prompting from some off-screen questioner, “the naked thing is no big for me, ya know? You gotta be smart from a survival perspective, gotta protect the skin, protect the feet and all that, but being naked is our natural state, bro. I’d live my whole life balls out if I could – just like God intended, eh?” He grins again, shakes his fist with his thumb and pinky extended, _hang loose_.

It shows him climbing out of the jeep, shedding shirt and board shorts just like he’s about to hop in the shower, like there’s not a camera crew filming him as he strips. He turns to face the camera, grin firmly in place and arms spread wide, no shame at all.

“I’m ready to rock out with my [beep] out, man. Let’s do this!”

Jamie can’t help but grin a little, at the guy’s unbridled enthusiasm. Usually when he watches the show the contestants, especially the guys, are just trying to be hard-assed, bragging about how this is nothing, how they’re definitely going to make it through the 21 days, no sweat. Never say die, failure is not an option, blah fucking blah. More than half of them end up crying and moaning as they’re loaded into the evac vehicle, too cold or sick or weak to go on.

Jamie always feels a little bit of vindictive satisfaction when that happens – just to the ones who ran their fucking mouths before they even got started, or to the ones who are assholes to their partners.

He’s got a pretty good rate of success guessing, just from the intros, who’s going to make it and who isn’t.

He has a good feeling about Tyler.

**\+ + +**

Jamie’s episode was filmed in the rain forest of South America. His partner made a lewd joke the second they met, insisted they not expend the energy to build a raised sleeping patform, then couldn’t take the bugs on the ground and tapped out on day 3. Jamie tried hard to be patient with her, but he didn’t try to change her mind.

He built himself a platform shelter, caught salmon and spotted catfish mostly every day, but mostly ate Pacay and Achachairu and a few bugs, because it was usually too wet to build a fire to cook his fish.

Luckily he could drink straight from the rapids on the river, didn’t need the fire to boil his water or he would have been a goner. The bugs and the rain and the perpetual chill that came with it were a whole other issue, but that was a matter of strength of will, and Jamie’s never had a shortage of that.

He fashioned a spear and killed a wild pig, the first contestant ever to successfully hunt and kill prey that large with weapons created during filming, then couldn’t get a fire started. He had to leave the carcass down by the river so the jaguars didn’t come to his camp looking for it that night.

He survived 18 days alone, the longest of any contestant in the history of the show. He spent it mostly wet and hungry, mostly not sleeping or eating, mostly covered in mud to keep the bugs at least a little bit at bay. There wasn’t much to say about it, there was nothing to do but grit his teeth and endure it.

**\+ + +**

Tyler’s partner is an Outward Bound instructor from Colorado. They get along like a house on fire, laughing and joking through their first few days with no food or water and cuddling up so close together at night that Jamie’s convinced they’re going to be the first verifiable case of contestants hooking up on the show. They’re both that type who get stripped down by the elements to a raw emotional state, and both the type who just talk openly about their feelings. They cry together in the dark one night about how tough it is out there, and wake up smiling and like, bonded or whatever.

That happens sometimes, on the show. Jamie doesn’t really get that; hardship just makes him clam up tighter than usual, makes his natural stoicism kick into a higher, even more stoic gear.

He sometimes wonders what that would be like, to just say how you feel.

Watching Tyler and his partner commiserate, sobbing together until the sobs turn into hiccupping laughs, then falling asleep in each other’s arms, it seems.

Nice, maybe. Just to – let that _out_ , once in a while.

Not that Jamie would know.

Tyler manages to snare a rabbit, and at another point kills a snake to keep them fed. He keeps his partner calm when a freak thunderstorm washes out their fire and their shelter on day 17, and they can’t boil their sketchy looking bog water anymore. Tyler climbs an impossible-looking rock formation to set up a cistern to catch the rainwater. It’s pretty impressive.

Tyler and his partner are both young, hot and single. They both make it to the end, hugging and holding hands in the truck from their extraction point. In their final personal interviews, they both talk about how they’re going to be life-long friends.

Predictably, their episode becomes known for being _the one where the contestants (probably) had sex_.

**\+ + +**

Jamie thinks they pretty much always ask the contestants about their relationship status, about what they think of being naked with their partner, all that. He knows that’s just part of it, the naked thing is the hook of the show after all, but when they asked him during filming he just gave bland answers about concentrating on the challenge and not paying attention to any of that other stuff, hoping to be boring enough they wouldn’t use any of that footage.

When the episode aired, it turned out his partner hadn’t been quite as judicious with her answers. She had a whole to-camera interview segment making insinuations about his anatomy, giggling through a monologue about how distracting it was, and finally ending by saying _my boyfriend is going to kill me for this but Jamie’s definitely the biggest I’ve ever seen,_ then covering her face with another peal of muffled laughter.

In the end, his episode isn’t known as _the one where the guy killed the pig_ or _the one where the guy was alone the whole time_. It’s known as _the one with the guy with the big dick_.

**\+ + +**

When the producers first got in touch with Jamie about the concept for Naked and Afraid: XL and asked him to participate, he turned them down flat. At the time he’d barely been over the embarrassment of the first episode, and it had aired over a year before. He still likes watching the show, obviously, but the idea of being on it again? Of even longer in the miserable fucking jungle, with even more other people to deal with? Yeah, hard pass, _thanks_.

They called again before season two of XL to give him the hard sell: Did he watch the first season? There’s more strategy, more people, it’s a whole different experience, it’s going to be Africa! They tried to butter him up by laying on a bunch of bullshit about how he’d really have a chance to showcase his hunting and fishing skills, about how they considered him a natural leader without being overbearing or demanding, and that his personality type would really be really needed in a larger group setting.

He rolled his eyes and politely declined. Again.

When they’re casting for the 5th season of XL, they try one more time, promising him if he’s not interested, it will be the last time they’ll bother him.

It’s in Micronesia this time, some uninhabited island with a lush, tropical jungle on one side and a rocky sun-bleached desert beach on the other – a little something for everyone.

In XL, they mix up the team configurations to start off, interrupting the traditional pairs with groups of 3 or 4 typically, but the producer mentions that one contestant in Season 4 asked to compete alone, throws that out there like maybe that’s an enticement for Jamie. Like just because he had no choice last time, being alone is really what he’d prefer. He wrinkles his nose in distaste.

“We’ve got some of our most successful survivalists from past seasons already committed for this one, Jamie,” the producer says, “so it’s understandable if you might feel a little intimidated. But maybe it would be fun to see if you can hold your own with these guys, right? Imagine if it turned out you’re even _better_ than these guys?”

His jaw sets and his heart races, and somehow, Jamie finds himself agreeing. Almost as if all the psychological testing and self-evaluation questionnaires they put him through before they cast him the first time gave them some insight into the arguments that might work best on him.

He rolls his eyes at his own stupid predictability, at the way his particular, ridiculous mix of insecurity and a hyper-competitive nature were just blatantly used against him.

Oh well - Micronesia it is.

**\+ + +**

“You’re so fuckin’ easy, Chubbs, Jesus,” Jordie shakes his head, but he’s grinning.

“Stop it,” Jamie hisses softly, nodding his head at the family with kids just a few feet away, laughing and leaning over the rail, watching their lines drag through the water. “Watch your language with the customers, geez.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jordie snorts, and keeps on cleaning the sizable Halibut on the table in front of him. “Hey, at least it’s good for business, eh? Just try to remember to mention our fuckin’ name this time, dipshit.”

Jamie just rolls his eyes again, and hopes he’s not blushing. He _did_ forget to mention the company name, last time, but whatever – plenty of people have managed to find them anyway. One good thing that came from his episode, at least.

He goes below to get a release form from Jenny, for Mr. Helios to sign so they can use the picture of him and his Halibut on the website. It really was a nice fucking fish.

“I hear you’re leaving us again, eh?” She grins at him from behind her desk stacked with neat piles of paperwork and color-coded files. No one even tries to pretend she’s not the brains of this whole operation, and anyway, Jamie and Jordie have always been better at the physical, hands-on stuff. Their parents have been retired for going on 5 years now, and it’s worked so far.

“What is it, six weeks this time instead of three? Holy shit, Jame.” She looks at him skeptically and Jamie feels his stomach drop a little, guilt settling in. He didn’t even ask them this time, if they’d mind. He probably should have.

“Yeah,” he says, sheepish, “sorry about that. I’ll work everything out with Tommy and Brian and Devon, make sure we have all my work covered before I go. It’s still a few months off, anyway.”

“And remind me, what do you get if you make it through all six weeks of pointless human suffering?” She raises an eyebrow, shoots him a sarcastic grin.

Jamie just shrugs. He knows she’s teasing, but still. She has a point, and maybe it’s stupid that he’s doing this. It’s probably, definitely stupid that he’s doing this.

“Still no cash prize, I guess?” She nudges past him in the tiny office, reaches up to ruffle his hair like he’s some kid. She digs the form out of a drawer and hands it over.

“No cash prize,” he confirms, shrugs again, “I just. I dunno, it’s.”

She smiles again, her softer, big sister smile, and lays a hand in the middle of his chest.

“I’m just kidding, you know that right? You’re a grown up, you can do what you want. And you’re allowed to take time off, if you want to. What’s the point of working for yourself, if you can’t? If you want to spend your vacation time miserable and starving, that’s your business, man. Now get out, I have to process all the payments before we dock.”

She turns him with her hands on his shoulders, shoves him out the door.

**\+ + +**

“I don’t know,” Jamie says at the PA’s prompting, looking out at the water instead of at the camera, “I’m nervous, I guess, but also excited. I’m anxious to meet my team and, just. The not-knowing is the worst part, I think. Once I’m in it, I’ll be fine.”

He thinks about those guys he hates when he’s watching on TV, the too-sure-of-themselves ones that make him glad when they fail.

“I hope, anyway,” he adds quickly, “you never really know for sure.”

When the little single-engine skiff drops him on the beach, Jamie dutifully tugs off his shirt and kicks off his sandals, then shoves his shorts and underwear down all at once as the cameras record every fucking move.

The PA asks him to give them some kind of comment on how he’s feeling, and Jamie shrugs.

“I’m here,” is all he says, “let’s do this.”

**\+ + +**

Tyler and Roy are his partners. He’s never seen Roy’s episode, but of course he’s seen Tyler’s. Maybe a few times. He knows Tyler is good.

And also, sort of scorchingly hot, like even more so in person than Jamie had really understood from watching his episode. And he had understood plenty from watching his episode.

Luckily he’s used to ignoring stuff like his feelings, used to pretending not to notice the things – _people_ – he notices.

So - nothing new there, really.

There’s no fresh water anywhere on their side of the island, according to their map. They’d have to climb to the other side of the mountain, which is a lot of energy to expend right off the bat. So Tyler and Roy set about digging a well first thing, while Jamie takes his fishing net out. He comes back up the beach with two reasonably sized grouper, starts a fire, and cleans the fish, which is easier said than done with a machete and a not-very-flat rock.

By the time he’s managed to skewer the fish and set up a spit, the sun’s going down. He’s just starting to feel that old feeling he had last time, of being in a strange place and truly alone, that panic slowly clawing its way into his chest, when he hears the rustling and snapping sounds of something coming toward him through the jungle.

He knows it’s stupid – there are camera people just a few meters away, and a medic and a PA at a camp just around the bend of the beach. But until he sees Roy and Tyler emerge from the dense foliage, he keeps his hand tight around the hilt of his machete.

They bring the pot mostly filled with muddy water, which is a relief. They boil it and let it cool while they eat their fish. When they can finally drink, Tyler proposes a toast with his tin mug.

“To Jamie,” he grins, “finally getting to cook and eat something he killed on Naked and Afraid.”

“Here, here,” Roy chimes in, and Jamie blushes.

And that answers the question of whether or not his teammates – and okay, fine, yes, Tyler specifically – have seen his episode.

**\+ + +**

They work well together.

Tyler and Roy dig the well a little deeper and wider each day, and cover it with a screen made of twigs and palm thatch, held down by some heavy rock, to keep the wildlife out. Jamie fishes and keeps them fed, and they all help gather wood and tend the fire.

They sleep on the beach the first few nights, but the insects are a lot to deal with. The fourth day, they discuss whether or not they think the well is going to keep them in water long enough that it would make sense to set up a longer-term camp on this site. They all agree that it’s looking good so far, and set about building an elevated shelter.

As they start gathering the supplies they’ll need, it becomes clear Roy is at a distinct disadvantage for this particular task.

The thing is, Tyler is big. Not as big as Jamie, but still a big guy. Tall, and strong. Roy, on the other hand, is many things – an ex-Army medic, an expert marksman, a super nice guy – but he’s small. Thin, wiry, short; not weak, just _small_. They’re hauling big, heavy timbers, fallen palms from up and down the beach and other tree trunks from out of the jungle, and Tyler and Jamie are enough taller than Roy that when they hoist the wood up, one end on Jamie’s shoulder and one on Tyler’s, Roy can practically walk right under the log like it’s a fucking game of limbo. All in all, it makes the most sense for him to try his hand at fishing for the day, and leave the building to Tyler and Jamie.

Roy is also a ginger with skin as white as paper, and not much of a fisherman by his own admission. He’d been a bit sunburned already, even though he’s spent the majority of his days under the thick jungle canopy, working on the well.

He comes back empty handed and burnt to hell, and collapses into the new shelter, apologizing weakly for the lack of food.

Jamie feels the guilt settle into his stomach.

Fishing is his job, literally; Roy shouldn’t have had to be out there on the water all day. And Jamie shouldn’t have let him go out with no protection from the sun – they could have slept on the sand one more day and taken the time to make a poncho or something.

It’s also really embarrassing, because Jamie knows he was probably influenced by his idiotic crush on Tyler, too stupidly pleased at how well they worked together and happy to get to know him a bit better, happy to have time to secretly watch the way his muscles play under his skin in the sun, the way his back and ass flex and move, and – Jesus Christ, he feels like a fucking creep.

Jamie should have handled the whole day differently, should have thought ahead more.

While Jamie’s busy futily brooding, quietly hating himself, Tyler’s busy doing something actually helpful. He shimmies up a skinny palm tree and hacks down a couple of coconuts. He cracks them open expertly with his machete and makes Roy drink the water from one while he shares the other with Jamie. When they’re emptied out, he halves them both and digs out the meat, passing it around.

“Better than nothing, eh?” He shrugs at Jamie with a grin. Jamie thanks him sincerely, but he can’t quite force a smile in return.

When Roy taps out the next day, vomiting and shivering and wretched with dehydration and blistered skin and general misery, Tyler takes one look at Jamie’s face and shakes his head.

“Not your fault, man,” he says with a clap of his hand on Jamie’s shoulder.

“I dunno,” Jamie shrugs, non-committal, “I should’ve.” He’s still watching the boat taking Roy back to his regular life, as it fades out into the horizon.

“You should’ve, I should’ve, Roy should’ve,” Tyler says, and his fingers squeeze around Jamie’s Trapezius in a way that makes Jamie’s eyes flutter closed, just for a minute. “We all could’ve done shit differently, but we didn’t. Sucks that it ended up like this, but hey. You and me now, right?”

Jamie swallows, and opens his eyes. He tries to take a deep breath, but can’t quite manage it.

“Right,” he nods anyway, and Tyler grins.

That definitely doesn’t help with the breathing situation.

**\+ + +**

On day 20, the PA that directs their to-camera pieces starts asking pointed questions in Jamie’s segment, about whether or not they’re curious about exploring more of the island, about potentially finding the other contestants.

As far as Jamie’s concerned, that’s a resounding _no_ , but he tempers his answers in his diary segments, talks around it with platitudes like _you never know what will happen out here_ and _we’re just worrying about our team, for now._

He doesn’t want to sound like an overconfident douche, or like a poor sport. Or _definitely_ not like he’s too invested in keeping Tyler all to himself, or anything like that.

Plus, Jamie doesn’t want to look like an idiot, just in case Tyler’s saying something different in his segments.

Jamie doesn’t _think_ he is – not after what he and Tyler whisper about at night sometimes, after the crew has packed it in for the day, about how they lucked out with this location, and with getting along so well. About how much it would suck to spend 40 days with a bunch of hungry, thirsty, bitchy know-it-alls, and how drama-free it is with just the two of them.

But Jamie learned from his first experience, you never know what your partner is saying about you in their interviews. Not until you’re back home, and you’re watching with your family and your _grandma_ for Christ sakes, and it turns out your partner spent a whole to-camera segment talking about your genitalia, specifically, and then you end up wanting to crawl under the carpeting and die.

Right.

So, Jamie definitely tries to keep that in mind, tries to tamp down any enthusiasm he may feel about how well things are going, but the bottom line is you can’t argue with facts, and the facts are they’ve got a pretty sweet set up so far.

There’s plenty of good fishing and crabbing where they are, lots of mature coconuts they can harvest in addition to the variety of other fruits Tyler comes across in the jungle, and there’s kelp Jamie pulls while he’s wading around out in the water, then Tyler dries on the lower limbs of the slanted palms on the beach. It’s kind of crunchy and salty, like the kale chips Jenny likes, and Jamie thinks he could survive a hell of a lot longer than 40 days on fire roasted fish, coconut, fruit and kelp. Their number one concern is the well holding out, but they’re halfway through and it’s still going strong.

Other than that, they’ve really got no worries.

Jamie fishes every day and Tyler gathers wood and tends the fire while Jamie’s out in the water. He fills their pot up at the well and scavenges for other food sources on his way, and he even snares a bird once, which makes a nice change from all the fish. He weaves sandals and hats and ponchos for them out of palm fronds, and fashions sleeping mats for their platform shelter. He makes jokes about being the housewife in their little arrangement, then laughs at the way it makes Jamie roll his eyes and shake his head, sometimes maybe blush just a little.

They’ve weathered one two-day rainstorm without their fire, huddled together under the dripping thatch of their shelter like a couple of half-drowned rats, but even that wasn’t so bad, really. They had a few breadfruits and a coconut to eat while they waited it out; they put their pot out in the rain and it collected more than enough water for them to drink to get them through the lack of fire.

The rain also reminded Jamie of something he learned on his first go-round with the show. Predictably, the camera crew is less persistent, less dogged about spending the whole day tracking you when the weather is miserable and all you’re doing is sitting there shivering, anyway.

On his first episode, the disappearance of the camera crew for hours at a time just served to cement Jamie’s feelings of isolation and loneliness.

This time around, it gave him a distinct sense of freedom, like a kid allowed to stay home alone for the first time or something.

Tyler is pretty unguarded regardless, cameras or no, but the lack of constant observation made Jamie feel a tiny bit less on edge, let him feel a little more comfortable to laugh at Tyler’s jokes and maybe make some of his own back, to talk a little more freely without feeling so exposed to constant scrutiny.

“This is old news for you, eh?” Tyler shouldered into him on their second day in the rain, good-natured and teasing even through the generally miserable conditions. “Being cold and soggy is sort of your thing, right?”

Jamie shrugged, let out a little snort.

“Yeah, a couple of days isn’t so bad. Now, if it lasts for three weeks – different story.”

Tyler just shouldered him again, grinning.

“Aw, c’mon, even if it lasts three weeks, at least this time you won’t be alone, that’s something right?”

Jamie just nodded, feeling ridiculously grateful for that simple, easy reassurance.

When the sky cleared and things warmed up again, they spent a morning reinforcing their leaky roof and laying a bunch of firewood out in the sun to dry out, then Jamie went fishing and by the time he came back with his catch, walking up the beach at dusk, Tyler already had the fire going and a pot of well water boiling.

“My hero,” Tyler grinned at him, when Jamie laid the fish down next to his knee, and Jamie could feel himself blushing again. It’s his typical response to Tyler’s teasing, but that doesn’t mean Jamie’s not glad for his perpetual sunburn, doesn’t mean he’s not hoping that it helps hide the worst of it from Tyler, and more importantly, from the camera.

They cooled the water while Tyler helped Jamie clean and skewer and cook the fish, the two of them working in companionable silence, then ate the roasted grouper with some star fruit and dried kelp, and the water Tyler had boiled with a slice of coconut, just to give it a flavor other than campfire smoke.

All in all, Jamie’s experience this time has been about 1000 percent better than the last time. The degree to which that percentage depends on Tyler being around is embarrassingly high, but Jamie’s doing his best to ignore that part of it.

**\+ + +**

It’s not that Jamie’s some sad, repressed, 30-year-old closet case. He’s, whatever - _out,_ and everything. To the people who matter, who really know him, of course he’s out; he’s not hiding anything, he’s not fucking _ashamed_ , okay, and he hates that maybe it comes off that way sometimes just because he doesn’t want to rub it in anyone’s face, because he doesn’t necessarily bring guys around his boys, or doesn’t necessarily default immediately to _sorry,_ _I’m gay_ as a means to cut short the awkwardness of the women who sometimes hit on him.

He doesn’t really know how to do relationships, is the thing, and he can’t really be expected to want to introduce some two-week hookup to his family, can he? It’s just he’s never really been comfortable talking much about himself at all, much less talking about shit like who he wants to sleep with. Like a lot of things – most things, really – Jamie’s instinctive tendency is to keep his mouth shut and his cards held close to the vest, and there’s a stubborn, persistent voice in his head that says it’s nobody’s fucking _business_. Certainly, it’s not the entire worldwide audience of the Discovery Channel’s business.

Jamie doesn’t owe anyone any information at all about what he does or does not choose to do with his dick, thank you very much. And no amount of Jordie’s teasing about the groups of women who seem to have suddenly taken up an interest in chartering fishing boats off Victoria Island since Jamie’s original episode aired is going to change his mind about that.

But when he and Tyler are talking late at night, fire burning low and camera crew long gone, that’s a whole different story - that’s not the same thing at all.

So when Tyler says,

“Me and Maya laugh all the time about how everyone thinks we were fucking during our episode. I mean first of all, not like either one of us really brought condoms as our personal item, right? Like, logistically it doesn’t even make sense! And second, it’s like, I don’t even sleep with girls anyway. Ya know?”

And his grin falters a little behind that forcefully casual admission, like he’s maybe just a little afraid of how Jamie’s going to take that revelation, Jamie’s heart thumps a little louder, a little faster suddenly. And it’s not that it’s _easy_ , exactly – it never is – but it’s not that hard, either, for Jamie to swallow the lump in his throat and say,

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Tyler looks briefly startled, like he thinks maybe Jamie is fucking with him or something, but Jamie just ducks his head a little and tries not to blush too much, and finally Tyler punches his arm then throws back his head and cackles.

“No shit?” Tyler raises his eyebrows, and Jamie shrugs back.

“No shit.” He confirms, and the firelight glints off Tyler’s perfect white teeth as his grin makes its triumphant return.

**\+ + +**

On Day 26, Jamie comes in from fishing and finds three extra people around his campfire, laughing and talking animatedly with Tyler. Jamie can see the fingerprints of that fucking PA and her not-so-subtle hints about _exploring the island_ all over them.

It sounds like they’ve been doing okay at their camp – they’re about 5 miles up the beach to the northwest, and they’ve got their own well, that’s holding up so far – but they’ve been surviving mostly on fruit and coconut, haven’t had much luck with protein.

“You’re welcome to these,” Jamie offers as he drops the fish onto the thatched mat Tyler made them to use as a kind of cutting board. That way, they can rinse off the blood and guts in the water and re-use it the next day, but not attract bugs and vermin. It beats hauling water up from the ocean to clean off the rock they were using before. Actually, it’s pretty genius, and it works great.

He makes eye contact with Tyler over the assembled group and nods.

“I’ll go check the traps, if you want to get these started?”

It feels oddly like the way his parents talk to each other when they’re hosting a barbeque, coordinating between what mom’s doing in the kitchen and what dad has happening outside on the grill.

“You bet,” Tyler nods, taking up the machete, and Jamie turns back toward the water.

“Jamie’s the fish whisperer,” he hears Tyler telling the others as he heads off down the beach. “We have fish and shellfish every day. Like, literally _every day_ , no joke. It’s amazing.”

He sounds almost _proud_ , and Jamie feels himself blush again. Jesus, he’s really got to get that under control if there are going to be other people around now.

He brings up the traps and they roast the little crabs and other shellfish that had collected inside. Jamie doesn’t even bother bringing the traps up everyday anymore, because they always have more than enough fish, and digging the little bits of meat out of a tiny crab claw doesn’t always seem worth it.

Watching their new additions slurp and suck hungrily at the shells, moaning with pleasure about how good it is reminds him again of how spoiled he and Tyler have gotten. They thank Jamie profusely and compliment his fishing prowess until he’s just mumbling, embarrassed and not sure what else to say in response.

Tyler catches his eye across the fire and smiles a small, secret little smile, and Jamie’s heart gives another loud, heavy thud in his chest. He dusts himself off – a stupid, pointless endeavor when you’re on a beach 24 hours a day, but one he finds he can’t stop himself from performing habitually anyway – and goes to bait his traps. And to just, maybe, catch his breath a little.

One of the new guys, Frank, comes out and asks if he can help, so Jamie shows him how he uses the fish entrails from their dinner, where he sinks the traps and how he anchors them. They rinse off the mat Tyler cleaned the fish on, scouring it against some rocks in the salty water until its rinsed completely clean.

“This is quite a set up you guys have built here,” Frank says, appreciation evident in his voice, and Jamie just nods.

“Yeah, we’ve been really lucky we got dropped in such a good spot.”

Frank huffs a laugh, shakes his head and slaps Jamie’s shoulder like he just told a joke or something.

**\+ + +**

By day 31, there are eight of them at Tyler and Jamie’s original camp.

Jamie has Frank running the traps every day, has shown him how to build a few new ones as well, to try and keep up with their growing numbers. He’s teaching Julie and Charlotte how to use the net that Charlotte brought as her personal item but hadn’t managed to have much luck with. They supplement Jamie’s catch everyday with at least one fish, sometimes two, and that helps take off a tiny bit of the pressure Jamie feels now of having eight mouths to feed.

As a whole, they limp along. Jamie and Tyler definitely don’t eat as well as they’d been used to – Frank and Julie and Charlotte may be extra hands to the task for the fishing, but without Jamie’s experience it’s not fair to expect them to produce too much. Tyler starts looking skinnier, but the newest arrivals look a little less weak and gaunt than they had when they arrived, eyes not quite so sunken in and showing a little more life, so Jamie supposes, begrudgingly, that’s a worthwhile tradeoff.

They’ve dug a second well about a half a mile away from the first one, and they have two fires going at all times, struggling to meet the demands of keeping eight people in clean drinking water. Water duty has become a full-time job, assigned to Sybille and Nicole.

Tyler and Jackson build a larger sleeping platform that all four of the women share, but Jackson and Frank just make mats on the sand, sleep individually out at the edges of camp.

Jamie and Tyler go to bed at night in their shelter, secluded from the rest of camp by the carefully thatched overhanging roof Tyler has kept building over time, and the privacy they share there feels heavy, fraught with significance of some kind – and particularly conspicuous in light of the fact that the others have none at all. Jamie wonders if the others speculate about what goes on in the shadows of their canopied bed, the way people speculated about Tyler and Maya in his first episode.

Not that Jamie and Tyler are sleeping curled around each other like that, of course – Tyler isn’t spooning up behind Jamie and whispering in his ear at night, like he’d done with Maya.

In fact, Jamie makes a point to lie at the very edge of the platform when he goes to sleep at night, and thanks his lucky stars that the pervasive hunger, thirst, filth, and overall exhaustion of his living situation seems to have dampened his tendency toward morning wood – even on those few excruciating, exhilarating days when he wakes up to Tyler tucked up against him, skin on skin.

They never acknowledge it, just move apart and move on with the business of the day, but they do talk at night, whispering in the dark before sleep. Plans for what needs to be done the next day, who’s the best choice to tackle each task, contingencies for if something goes wrong, discussions about how the group dynamic is holding up - who might need a break, or who might need a little extra attention.

Charlotte and Julie tease them and call them mom and dad.

Nicole and Frank fight like cats and dogs and refuse to speak half the time, and only Tyler seems to have any luck talking sense to either one of them.

Jackson spends his days obsessed with making rat traps and generally avoiding contact with the group unless he’s hungry enough to join them for dinner, which rubs some people the wrong way and causes tensions to run a little high. But Jamie points out that Jackson feeding himself takes the pressure off all of them when it comes to food resources, and that he always brings firewood when he comes for dinner. Jamie pronounces that a fair trade in his view, and everyone seems to agree enough to stop grumbling after that.

Tyler and Jamie strategize quietly in their shelter at night and tell each other that despite all that, if the wells hold, they just might get all eight of them to Day 40.

**\+ + +**

All eight of them get to day 40.

The boat picks up two more sunburned, bedraggled, skinny contestants that to Jamie seem at best possibly-vaguely-familiar from TV, from the beach on the other side of the island. They’re the last 10 standing out of an original 16, and Jamie guesses there’s a sense of accomplishment in that.

The boat takes them all back to a swanky resort on Vanuatu, where they all get wrapped in bathrobes, suddenly feeling awkward with each other as if _not_ being naked is the weird part, and then they’re put through a thorough set of medical tests. Tyler makes funny faces at Jamie from across the room where he’s getting his blood drawn, sandaled feet swinging in the air under the stainless steel table he’s sitting on.

They get sent to their rooms where there’s hot water and soap and toothpaste and real clothes, and Jamie stays in the shower for what feels like hours scrubbing off sand and scum and funk and burnt, peeling skin. Jamie came to the show with a thick goatee, figured why fight the inevitable full, bushy beard he knew he’d have by the end of 40 days, but now scraping his face clean with a bright, sharp razor feels like the height of decadence. Using the electric razor that’s been helpfully provided to buzz off his sideburns feels so good he keeps going, buzzes the sides and the back of his head and basically gives himself a glorified mohawk, leaving it long on top. He doesn’t give a shit how it looks, he feels _clean_.

He slaps on a spicy smelling aftershave, smooths what’s left of his hair back with a little pomade, puts on underwear for the first time in six weeks, and goes down to dinner feeling like a new man.

Jamie’s already seated, talking to Charlotte across the long table when Tyler slips into the seat next to him. He smells like the same aftershave Jamie’s wearing, like the same hotel-issue soap, but his hair is still long and scruffy, curling damp around the collar of his shirt, and he held on to a stubbly, if well-manicured beard.

“Check you out,” he says, and runs a hand across the buzzed hair at the back of Jamie’s head, scritching his fingers along the scalp then running the backs of his knuckles down the smooth skin of Jamie’s jaw with a grin. “Clean up nice, eh?”

Jamie tries not to shiver visibly.

Charlotte looks like the cat with the canary across the table, watching them, and Jamie knows he’s blushing again, goddammit.

“Yeah, wonders of soap, right?” Is all Jamie manages, then the waiters interrupt to start loading the table with platters of crispy roasted pork and rice and vegetables and, mercifully, _alcohol_ \- lots of alcohol.

**\+ + +**

Jamie has barely closed the door to his room when there’s a knock, and he’s exhausted and drunk and _exhausted_ , but he’d be lying like a fucking rug if he even tried to pretend he hadn’t been hoping for that knock.

Tyler grins when the door swings open, raises an eyebrow.

“I mean, right?” He shrugs, loose limbed and cocky as hell, like it’s a rhetorical question.

Which, like, it definitely is.

Jamie nods helplessly, leans against the wall and gestures for Tyler to come in.

“Yeah, um, right. Yes.”

He swings the door closed, and in no time Tyler’s got him flat on his back, straddling his hips, devouring his mouth and whispering a close-to-incoherent string of babel and nonsense into his neck, against his ear.

It’s _Jesus, want you so bad_ and _you have no fucking idea, do you_ , and _been waiting forever, fuck, fuck, c’mon_. Jamie just grabs onto his ass with both hands, and groans. He’s thought about doing it before, maybe one or two or five thousand times, thought about that perfect ass and how it would feel under his fingers. He always imagined it would feel amazing.

It really, really does not disappoint.

Tyler’s still whispering and panting _look at you_ and _were driving me crazy out there_ and _the way you smell, fuck_ and _you’re so good, Jamie, God, please_ , and Jamie just keeps holding on, heart hammering in his chest and feeling a little hysterical with it.

He squeezes hard, fingers digging into Tyler’s ass, and he keens a little and pulls his mouth away. His eyes focus on Jamie’s face, bleary at best.

“Okay, okay,” He says, like a man trying to get his bearings. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Jamie agrees with a deep, steadying breath, but then he ruins it by pulling down on Tyler’s hips and rutting up against him.

“Okay,” Tyler says again, more sternly this time, hand on Jamie’s chest holding him off. Then he seems to make up his mind, and slides down the bed, insinuates himself right in between Jamie’s legs.

“Jamie, okay, listen,” he says one more time, this time to Jamie’s crotch.

“I’m listening,” Jamie assures him, fists twisted up in the plush down comforter of his hotel bed. “I am, just. Please.”

“I don’t want you to think it’s about this,” Tyler says, and he’s shaking his head while he’s popping the button on Jamie’s shorts, overly serious the way drunk people can be. “It’s not about this, I fucking swear, okay? I swear I thought you were so cute when I saw your episode, and the way you stuck it out like that, _alone_? I mean _God_ – impressive, ya know? I could never do that.”

And Jamie’s not sure what the hell Tyler’s talking about, but he’s pulling Jamie’s zipper down, pulling his fly open, sliding his hand along the very obvious ridge of Jamie’s erection, over his boxer briefs. Tyler pauses to press his mouth down over the fabric, and his hot breath makes Jamie’s hips shudder, makes him have to squirm a little just to keep from bucking his dick up against Tyler’s face like some rude, demanding asshole.

“I like you so much,” Tyler says, eyes big and sincere, “so much, okay?”

Jamie just nods, pants _me too, me too, yeah_ , hypnotized by the way Tyler’s fingers are pulling at the waistband of his boxers, tugging down until his erection slides free, until the elastic is tucked back behind his balls.

“Holy shit,” Tyler breathes, “I swear it’s not about this,” and his lips are on the bare skin of Jamie’s cock, and Jamie’s still watching, transfixed. “It’s not _just_ about this,” he amends, “but - .”

And the he looks up, and grins. He fucking grins, that big grin that always makes Jamie’s heart pound too hard, grins like a fool, and shakes his head.

“But Jamie, _Jesus_.”

Tyler wraps his hand around Jamie’s cock and breathes out low and reverent, then grins even bigger, lets out a drunk little peal of laughter. “I mean, it’s a little about this, right? Like, your last partner, what was her name?” He doesn’t stop to let Jamie answer, and he doesn’t stop giggling, even as his hand squeezes, strokes up and down Jamie’s cock.

“She wasn’t kidding, eh? Holy shit.” He’s laughing so hard now, and Jamie would be mortified if he wasn’t drunk and exhausted and so fucking happy just to have Tyler’s hand on his cock, Tyler’s hot breath ghosting across sensitive skin as he laughs.

As it is, Jamie finds himself giggling, too.

“Shut up, asshole,” he snorts, and shoves at the side of Tyler’s head, “Don’t knock it till you try it, eh?”

“Oh, I’m gonna try it,” Tyler says, and wiggles his eyebrows. Then he snorts and wheezes, “if I have to tap out, call the medic for me, yeah?”

Jamie can’t help it, he snickers, and then they’re both giggling again. It’s a release of pressure, a weight lifted, a stupid, giddy, drunken happiness.

It takes a while for them to quiet themselves again.

“You, um. You really don’t have to – you know,” Jamie finally manages, awkwardly, once the hysteria has passed. “I just want to. I mean, I want you to feel good, is all.”

Tyler licks his lips and nuzzles into the crease of Jamie’s thigh, opens his wet mouth and drags it across Jamie’s hip.

“You want me to feel good, huh?” He says, slow and suddenly syrupy, rough and low, and Jamie nods, emphatic.

“So good,” he croaks.

“Just being here with you makes me feel good. Everything about you makes me feel good, okay?” Tyler whispers, and then his mouth closes around Jamie - with no negative side effects or need for medical intervention, thank you very much - slides right down to take him into that soft, wet heat, and Jamie thinks he might have forgotten how to breathe, but if he dies right here at least he’ll die happy.

**\+ + +**

Jamie wakes up in the very early morning, first shades of dawn barely sneaking in around the edges of the blackout curtains, cotton-mouthed and gritty eyed. He stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss, brushes his teeth, splashes cold water on his face and downs one of the little bottles of water on offer atop the mini bar for, if he had to guess, about $5 a pop. He doesn’t give a fuck, Discovery Channel’s paying.

He slides back into bed, and hears Tyler say _ugh._

Jamie grunts in response, watches with one eye closed as Tyler staggers naked to the bathroom and closes the door. Jamie absently wonders if maybe it should feel awkward, unsure, something, but when Tyler comes back and slides under the comforter, slides up against Jamie’s side and slings an arm over his him with a loud yawn, it doesn’t feel any of those things. It feels like they’ve been doing this forever.

“So maybe we shouldn’t have been so drunk for that, I guess,” Tyler whispers, voice a low rumble.

“I dunno.” Jamie keeps his eyes closed, shrugs. “I didn’t mind.”

Tyler snorts, buries his face in Jamie’s ribs.

“It didn’t seem like you minded, now that you mention it.”

Jamie huffs a little, grins with his eyes still closed, and pulls Tyler closer.

“I waited a long time,” Tyler whispers. “I didn’t want to miss my chance.”

It feels like something in Jamie’s chest cracks open, right in the spot where his dumb crush on Tyler has been sitting, taking up space for weeks now.

“I know, me too,” he whispers, and his throat feels too dry, even with the bottled water and everything. “But maybe sleep now, and talk later?”

His eyes are still closed, but he can feel Tyler’s hair rub against his chin as Tyler nods his silent agreement.

At breakfast, everyone is hugging goodbye, talking about flight times and sleeping in their own beds and who’s waiting for them at home.

“Where you headed next, Ty,” Frank asks, “gonna take a break at home, or is it straight into the next adventure?”

Jamie keeps his head down, shovels eggs into his mouth like he’s not paying rapt fucking attention.

“I’m not sure, bro,” Tyler says. “but I think maybe home, yeah.”

And he’s listened enough to Tyler talk about all the places he’s lived, the things he’s done. It’s not like Jamie doesn’t know Tyler is a fucking rolling stone, or whatever, like he doesn’t know Tyler likes to be on his own, out in the world, moving from place to place. Tyler can’t help that, it’s who he is.

And Jamie, he’s a hometown kid, the kind of guy who grew where he was planted, who never had any big ambitions to be anywhere but the one place he’s always been. That’s just who he is, and he can’t help it either.

For all the ways that Jamie and Tyler are compatible, all the ways they could be well-suited to the task of building something real between them, if things were different – things aren’t different.

But they’ll be friends, he knows, him and Tyler. They’ll text sometimes, maybe call on special occasions, birthdays or something. Maybe when Tyler’s swinging through Jamie’s part of the world on his way to wherever the fuck he’s heading next, they can get together and have a drink, and that’ll be.

That’ll be nice, Jamie thinks.

He tightens his fingers on his fork and keeps shoveling his eggs.

“Canada’s a big place,” Tyler’s saying, “I was thinking how much of it I’ve never even seen. Like, I’ve never really been to the West Coast, ya know? And I hear BC is cool, so.”

Jamie’s head pops up. Tyler’s looking at him, eyes hooded and almost shy, grin barely there, uncertain.

Charlotte makes a strangled noise across the table, then swallows a giggle when Julie elbows her.

Jackson says something, and then Frank says something else, but Jamie can’t hear it for the rushing in his ears. Conversation goes on all around them. Jamie finishes his eggs and goes back to his room to pack up.

Tyler follows him.

**\+ + +**

“I’m Tyler,” says TV-Tyler, over footage of his first episode. There’s video of him killing the snake, climbing the rock wall, hugging Maya.

“I totally thought you guys hooked up,” Jordie says, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Since you’re not interested, could I get her number?”

“Absolutely fucking not,” is the reply from Tyler, and Jamie smiles into his beer.

The whole crowd gathered in Jenny’s living room breaks out into hooting and hollering when Jamie’s intro plays and he remembers to mention _Benn Fishing Charters_ this time around.

The catcalls are even louder when he strips off his clothes on the beach. And Jamie knows he’s blushing, like what else is new, but whatever. It’s just the season premiere - he had to agree to team-watch the first episode to get the boys (and Jenny) to shut up - but after this it’s gonna be him and Tyler watching alone in their apartment, and the rest of these assholes can send him a text if they want to mock him.

Which they _will._

At least his parents and grandparents decided to watch at home this time, thank God, so that’s some small comfort.

TV- Jamie walks up the beach and shakes Roy’s hand, then Tyler’s. There are awkward introductions and a few minutes of small talk, then they start deciding what to do first. Later, Tyler talks to the camera about how excited he is to have Jamie on his team.

“That guy was a beast in the Amazon, he killed that pig and everything? He’s got skills, for sure,” Tyler says, “plus us Canadian boys gotta stick together, eh?” Then he flexes in such a way that the Canadian flag tattoo on the inside of his bicep shows for the camera, and he grins.

“Are you gonna talk about Jamie’s dick, like his first partner?” Devon asks, and Jamie kicks him.

Back at home, they fire up the DVR and watch the first episode again. Now that it’s just the two of them, they can pause to dissect the editing, to call bullshit on the order that some events are presented and to try and guess at what the show’s narrative about the two of them is going to be.

“Two no-drama guys who have plenty of food and water, keep their fire going, and actually get along? Boring,” Jamie predicts, “we’re barely even gonna make it on screen, watch. It’s gonna be all Nicole and Frank flipping their shit on each other, and a bunch of over-dramatized slow reveal scenes teasing who ends up tapping out.”

“Dude, hello?” Tyler counters. “Try super handsome Canadian badass falls in love with _other_ super handsome Canadian badass, creates super tribe, leads all eight members to victory? That’s TV gold. We’re gonna be huge fucking stars, Benny. Huge! They’re gonna make a spin-off just for us, fuckin’, Naked and Into It.”

Jamie laughs – nobody’s called him Benny since he played midget hockey, but Tyler’s taken a shine to it, and Jamie can’t say he minds. Even when Tyler is so fuckin’ dumb, and says shit like _Naked and Into It._ Jesus.

He looks at the TV, where the DVR just happens to be paused on his face as he’s shaking Tyler’s hand. And that’s the first time they met, preserved forever in the annals of TV history, and now it’s almost a year later and somehow they got from there to here, and that’s - it’s a lot. It’s so much.

It’s everything Jamie never even dreamed he’d ever find, much less get to keep. But that not-prize money you get for finishing the show, pooled between the two of them, was a down payment on a second boat for what Benn’s Fishing Charters now refers to on their website as their _fleet_. And now he’s got Tyler working next to him every day, shirtless and brown, smelling like the sun and the sea, grinning his blinding white grin. He’s got Tyler coming home with him every night, sleeping wrapped up in his arms. He’s got Tyler telling him that this is home now, that whatever he’d been looking for out there in the world, he’s found it here, with Jamie.

“You think everyone will be able to tell we were?” Jamie asks. “Falling in love, I mean.”

He looks at his own big, mooney cow-eyes on screen as he's meeting Naked TV-Tyler and thinks _of course they will_. And he knows his voice has gone all soft and stupid, but Tyler just grins, indulgent. Because he’s good that way.

“Will it bug you, if they can?” he asks, because Tyler knows Jamie better than anyone now, probably, better even than Jordie and Jenny and his mom and dad. Tyler knows, there was a time Jamie would have minded. There’s a chance he still might mind.

But Jamie just shrugs, shakes his head.

“People will think what they want, I don’t give a shit,” he says, and thinks that’s mostly the truth.

“I still got you in the end,” he adds, and knows that’s the whole truth.


End file.
